>That boy ain’t right — but he sure is a hit for Hulu. Powered by the arrival of its first new episodes in over 15 years, King of the Hill will debut at No. 2 on Nielsen’s streaming originals and overall streaming ratings charts, per preliminary data set to be released next week. According to the ratings giant, the Mike Judge and Greg Daniels–created animated classic generated a Texas-size 1.28 billion minutes of viewing in the U.S. during the August 4–10 reporting period, ranking behind only the sophomore-season premiere of Netflix’s global smash Wednesday. The good news for Hulu (and fans who’ve already gobbled up season 14): Vulture has learned that production on another batch of KOTH episodes has already quietly wrapped, with a new season in the can and on track to arrive next year.

>To be clear, Hulu has not (yet) ordered more episodes of KOTH in response to this month’s strong viewership numbers. Instead, it turns out that when Hulu announced the KOTH revival back in January 2023, it ordered 20 half-hour episodes, according to people familiar with the matter. While the streamer never publicly specified the size of its episodic commitment — it simply released 10 new episodes as season 14 — that number was no secret to the show’s producers and writers, who were able to plot their story lines accordingly. The fact that Hulu would essentially order two seasons in advance shouldn’t really come as a surprise: Given the long lead times involved with animated projects, doing so was the only way to ensure that, in success, there wouldn’t be a long gap between new seasons of the show. It’s also the model Hulu used when it unfroze Futurama from its decade-long slumber in 2022, though in that case, Hulu revealed its 20-episode order from the start.

https://www.vulture.com/article/king-of-the-hill-revival-new-season-ratings.html